Summer: Hello everyone, I'm Summer! Today, we are honored to invite Kevin, co-founder of Bitlayer, for an interview. Kevin, please introduce yourself and briefly explain Bitlayer and your role in it.
Kevin: Thank you for the invitation, Summer! I'm Kevin, co-founder of Bitlayer. I entered the industry in 2017 and have been focusing on blockchain supply chain and infrastructure construction, participating in financial chain projects totaling around $400 million, and have also worked on Rollup-related projects for Ethereum. Bitlayer is the company we established in 2023, aimed at solving problems in the Bitcoin ecosystem through innovative technologies, such as WBTC's defects and Bitcoin scaling solutions. Our core technology is BitVM (BVM), primarily focusing on BTCD-Fi (Bitcoin DeFi), high-performance chains, and bridging solutions.
Summer: If you were to explain BitVM in a simple, easy-to-understand way, how would you describe it?
Kevin: It might be a bit complex for complete outsiders, but for those in the blockchain industry, BitVM is like an Optimistic Rollup on Bitcoin, similar to Arbitrum or Optimism on Ethereum. It provides state verification capabilities for Bitcoin's Layer 2, making a true second-layer network possible, which is essentially a scaling solution for Bitcoin.
[The translation continues in the same manner for the entire text, maintaining the specified terminology translations.]Kevin: This issue contains two parts: Does high TVL equal high FDV? Where does the revenue come from? First, high TVL does not equal high FDV. From last year to now, many projects have collapsed after high TVL, and the market does not accept the "flash in the pan" model. However, without TVL, the market cannot see projects with 1-2 million dollars, and this is the reality. What we pursue is not the TVL number, but capital efficiency - whether funds are truly circulating and creating value, rather than just "lying flat" in lockup. Revenue cannot rely on bag holders, as that would be a Ponzi scheme. We believe revenue comes from two aspects: first, trading, such as BTC interest-bearing financial products, where top teams on centralized exchanges last year could achieve 8-10% annual returns through funding rate arbitrage or cross-exchange arbitrage. In the future, we hope to achieve similar trading on-chain, in line with the original DeFi intention, rather than relying on CEX. Second, incentives, where projects issue token incentives to attract users, which can also contribute several percentage points of returns. This is a healthy and sustainable source of revenue.
Xia He: There have been many recent news in the Bitcoin ecosystem, such as UTXO Bonding and soft forks. What are your thoughts on soft forks?
Kevin: Soft forks and hard forks both belong to the category of Bitcoin scaling. There are two ways to scale: first, adding functions or performance directly on layer one, and second, achieving scaling through layer two binding. The first method involves adding functions on layer one. The Segregated Witness (SegWit) in 2017 achieved scaling by expanding block space, which triggered the BCH and BSV forks, but the main chain consensus remains the strongest. The Taproot upgrade in 2021 was more successful, adding new transaction types and reducing on-chain traces, which indirectly improved transaction capacity. Now it's 2025, and it's about time for another upgrade. The core of a soft fork is compatibility - old users can still use the chain even without upgrading, they just can't use new functions; hard forks require mandatory upgrades, otherwise the chain and assets become unusable, which creates huge resistance, so soft forks are more common. Layer two scaling requires binding between layer one and layer two, including methods like sidechains (no binding), joint mining (weak binding), and Rollup (strong binding). Ethereum chose Rollup because it balances security and scaling, which has proven to be the industrial standard. BitVM's Rollup route is also strongly bound, inheriting Bitcoin's security, and has been verified by Ethereum as the correct direction, so we need not challenge this consensus.
Xia He: Ethereum's layer two has a 7-day verification period. Does Bitlayer have the same?
Kevin: Optimistic Rollup (OP) requires a challenge period, assuming the layer two is not malicious, and waiting for community challenges of fraudulent behavior. Ethereum's 7 days was arbitrarily set and is not a hard rule. Now OP is combined with ZK (zero-knowledge proof), such as Arbitrum and zkSync collaboration, performing ZK verification during block generation, shortening confirmation time. Bitlayer's BitVM bridge can only use OP before Bitcoin upgrades (such as without OP_CAT, CTV, CSFS), theoretically requiring a longer challenge period. However, through liquidity providers' advance payment, users can withdraw immediately, with risks borne by operators, similar to Ethereum's three-party bridge logic. In the future, if Bitcoin supports ZK verification (such as OP_CAT), confirmation time could be reduced to a few hours or even shorter.
Xia He: Are there any major news from Bitlayer that can be previewed in this channel?
Kevin: We have two big things. First, the BitVM bridge is expected to go live on mainnet by the end of May, which is the industry's first BitVM bridge mainnet, a major achievement after the community's two-year effort, which will gradually improve decentralization and capital scale. Second, the second version of the Bitcoin Rollup mainnet will start its test environment, aiming to go live this year. These two things will push the Bitcoin layer two ecosystem to a new stage.
Xia He: Good, thank you for Kevin's wonderful sharing! This interview ends here.
Kevin: Thank you, Xia He, it was very pleasant!
